Sunday Times, 6th April 2014The clarion tones of Stuart Skelton's Oedipus are imperfectly caught by the LSO microphones, but Jennifer Johnston's lush-toned Jocasta and the men of Gardiner's Monteverdians excel.

The Times, 19th April 2014The performance, by the London Symphony Orchestra and 24 men from the Monteverdi Choir, is admirably clear, precise and hard-edged; the soloists are adequate; and the coupler - Stravinsky's startlingly romantic Apollon MusagFte ballet for string orchestra - is gorgeous.

BBC Music Magazine, June 2014Johnston's superb interpretation lifts the whole performance up a couple of notches...But John Eliot Gardiner's conducting somehow misses the work's elusive power.

On this, his first release for LSO Live, Sir John Eliot Gardiner conducts the London Symphony Orchestra, the Monteverdi Choir and top flight soloists including Jennifer Johnston and Stuart Skelton in a recording featuring Stravinsky's Oedipus Rex and Apollon musagète. French actress Fanny Ardant, who has appeared in more than fifty motion pictures, takes the role of narrator. The rich string harmonies and textures in the ballet score of Apollon musagète are pleasantly mesmerizing. In contrast, the dramatic and hauntingly compelling opera-oratorio Oedipus Rex is composed of an assemblage of monumental and powerful sounds, with magnificent vocals from the choir and soloists.